2016 Américas Awards Ceremony
Pam Muñoz Ryan and Ashley Hope Pérez received the 2016 Américas Award, given in recognition of U.S. works of fiction, poetry, folklore or selected non-fiction published in the previous year in English or Spanish that authentically portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinos in the United States. Cosponsored in collaboration with the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs.
Speaker Biography: Pam Muñoz Ryan is the author of Echo.
Speaker Biography: Ashley Hope Pérez is the author of Out of Darkness.
For transcript and more information, visit
John C. Breckinridge | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
John C. Breckinridge
00:03:50 1 Early life
00:06:39 2 Early legal career
00:09:04 3 Mexican–American War
00:11:47 4 Political career
00:11:56 4.1 Early political career
00:13:19 4.2 Kentucky House of Representatives
00:17:00 4.3 U.S. Representative
00:17:05 4.3.1 First term (1851–1853)
00:21:03 4.3.2 Second term (1853–1855)
00:24:34 4.3.3 Retirement from the House
00:26:24 4.4 Vice Presidency
00:32:55 4.5 Presidential campaign of 1860
00:39:24 4.6 U.S. Senator
00:44:15 5 Civil War
00:44:24 5.1 Service in the Western Theater
00:52:41 5.2 Service in the Eastern Theater
00:58:10 5.3 Confederate Secretary of War
01:02:31 6 Escape and exile
01:07:53 7 Return to the U.S. and death
01:12:13 8 Legacy
01:12:22 8.1 Historical reputation
01:13:18 8.2 Monuments and memorials
01:15:05 9 See also
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The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
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John Cabell Breckinridge (January 16, 1821 – May 17, 1875) was an American lawyer, politician, and soldier. He represented Kentucky in both houses of Congress and became the 14th and youngest-ever Vice President of the United States, serving from 1857 to 1861. He was a member of the Democratic party. He served in the U.S. Senate during the outbreak of the American Civil War, but was expelled after joining the Confederate Army. He was appointed Confederate Secretary of War in 1865.
Breckinridge was born near Lexington, Kentucky to a prominent local family. After non-combat service during the Mexican–American War, he was elected as a Democrat to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1849, where he took a states' rights position against interference with slavery. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1850, he allied with Stephen A. Douglas in support of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. After reapportionment in 1854 made his re-election unlikely, he declined to run for another term. He was nominated for vice-president at the 1856 Democratic National Convention to balance a ticket headed by James Buchanan. The Democrats won the election, but Breckinridge had little influence with Buchanan and, as presiding officer of the Senate, could not express his opinions in debates. In 1859, he was elected to succeed Senator John J. Crittenden at the end of Crittenden's term in 1861. As vice president, Breckinridge joined Buchanan in supporting the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution for Kansas, which led to a split in the Democratic Party.
After Southern Democrats walked out of the 1860 Democratic National Convention, the party's northern and southern factions held rival conventions in Baltimore that nominated Douglas and Breckinridge, respectively, for president. A third party, the Constitutional Union Party, nominated John Bell. These three men split the Southern vote, while more anti-slavery Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln won all but three electoral votes in the North, allowing him to win the election. Breckinridge carried most of the Southern states. Taking his seat in the Senate, Breckinridge urged compromise to preserve the Union. Unionists were in control of the state legislature, and gained more support when Confederate forces moved into Kentucky.
Breckinridge fled behind Confederate lines. He was commissioned a brigadier general and then expelled from the Senate. Following the Battle of Shiloh in 1862, he was promoted to major general, and in October he was assigned to the Army of Mississippi under Braxton Bragg. After Bragg charged that Breckinridge's drunkenness had contributed to defeats at Stone River and Missionary Ridge, and after Breckinridge joined many other high-ranking officers in criticizing Bragg, he was transferred to the Trans-Allegheny Department, where he won his most significant victory in the 1864 Battle of New Market. After participating in Jubal Early's campaigns in the Shenandoah Valley, Breckinridge was charged with defending supplies in Tennessee and Virginia. In February 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed him Secretary of War. Concludi ...
Award-Winning Journalists: Key Stories We Covered in 2017 - Then and Now
2018 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion
November 17
Denver, Colorado
The 2018 AAR Journalism Award winners and the Pulitzer Center’s celebrated journalists once again engage some of the biggest religion news stories and religion topics of 2017. The debate over evil during a devastating year of shootings and death, the resurgence of white nationalism, and religion in the US military are a few of the stories qualifying them as the 2018 top finishers. Not only will journalists examine these topics and others but they will also discuss updates, outcomes and impact on the public sphere and religion today.
Daniel Burke, winner of the 2018 AAR Award for Best In-Depth Newswriting on Religion and CNN's religion editor, submitted articles about Neil Gorsuch, the evil debate, Roy Moore and Trump announcing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Jack Jenkins, who placed second and national reporter for the Religion News Service, presented articles concerning Christian nationalism- its role and presence in the Trump presidency and American pulpits, as well as an article about white supremacy and the Charlottesville, VA protest.
Kelsey Dallas, who placed third and national religion reporter for the Deseret News, offered articles regarding Sikhs and US military uniform policy, US foreign policy, and the Christian legal movement’s involvement in the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission case.
The panel also includes two affiliates of the Pulitzer Center- an innovative award-winning, non-profit journalism organization that promotes in-depth engagement with underreported global affairs through its support of quality international journalism. Jason Motlagh, National Magazine Award winner, will present his current work on religiously inspired violence against Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar and Executive Director Jon Sawyer will discuss the Center’s interaction with journalists and contributions of other Pulitzer fellows.
At the beginning of the session, the AAR will hold an award ceremony honoring the 2018 winners.
Asma Afsaruddin, Indiana University, presiding
Panelists:
Daniel Burke, CNN
Kelsey Dallas, Deseret News
Jack Jenkins, Religion News Service
Jason Motlagh, Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting
Jon Sawyer, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup | Full Audiobook with subtitles
Twelve Years a Slave
Solomon NORTHUP
Twelve Years a Slave is the memoir of a freeborn African American from New York who is kidnapped and sold into slavery. After being held for twelve years on a Louisiana plantation, he is eventually freed and reunited with his family. (Summary by RobBoard)
Genre(s): Memoirs Audio Book Audiobooks All Rights Reserved. This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer visit librivox.org.
Auburn Coach Wife Kristi Malzahn Agrees with Match & eHarmony: Men are Jerks
My advice is this: Settle! That's right. Don't worry about passion or intense connection. Don't nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling Bravo! in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go. Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year. (It's hard to maintain that level of zing when the conversation morphs into discussions about who's changing the diapers or balancing the checkbook.)
Obviously, I wasn't always an advocate of settling. In fact, it took not settling to make me realize that settling is the better option, and even though settling is a rampant phenomenon, talking about it in a positive light makes people profoundly uncomfortable. Whenever I make the case for settling, people look at me with creased brows of disapproval or frowns of disappointment, the way a child might look at an older sibling who just informed her that Jerry's Kids aren't going to walk, even if you send them money. It's not only politically incorrect to get behind settling, it's downright un-American. Our culture tells us to keep our eyes on the prize (while our mothers, who know better, tell us not to be so picky), and the theme of holding out for true love (whatever that is—look at the divorce rate) permeates our collective mentality.
Even situation comedies, starting in the 1970s with The Mary Tyler Moore Show and going all the way to Friends, feature endearing single women in the dating trenches, and there's supposed to be something romantic and even heroic about their search for true love. Of course, the crucial difference is that, whereas the earlier series begins after Mary has been jilted by her fiancé, the more modern-day Friends opens as Rachel Green leaves her nice-guy orthodontist fiancé at the altar simply because she isn't feeling it. But either way, in episode after episode, as both women continue to be unlucky in love, settling starts to look pretty darn appealing. Mary is supposed to be contentedly independent and fulfilled by her newsroom family, but in fact her life seems lonely. Are we to assume that at the end of the series, Mary, by then in her late 30s, found her soul mate after the lights in the newsroom went out and her work family was disbanded? If her experience was anything like mine or that of my single friends, it's unlikely.
And while Rachel and her supposed soul mate, Ross, finally get together (for the umpteenth time) in the finale of Friends, do we feel confident that she'll be happier with Ross than she would have been had she settled down with Barry, the orthodontist, 10 years earlier? She and Ross have passion but have never had long-term stability, and the fireworks she experiences with him but not with Barry might actually turn out to be a liability, given how many times their relationship has already gone up in flames. It's equally questionable whether Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw, who cheated on her kindhearted and generous boyfriend, Aidan, only to end up with the more exciting but self-absorbed Mr. Big, will be better off in the framework of marriage and family. (Some time after the breakup, when Carrie ran into Aidan on the street, he was carrying his infant in a Baby Björn. Can anyone imagine Mr. Big walking around with a Björn?)